REAL Talk With Sam Holcman

Flowing through the Chinese government is a proposal to restrict internet usage on mobile devices for those under 18 years of age.  Those limits range from a 40 minute limit to those eight and under to two hours for those 18 and under.  Additionally, no internet between the hours of 10PM and 6AM.  Food for thought for those of us outside China.  Have a listen to the details, and I look forward to hearing your comments.

I revived a real letter recently – yes, an envelope with a stamp and contents.  I was not sure whether the envelope and some of the enclosed writing was handwritten, or computer generated.  What did intrigue me was one of the notes that was in the content explaining why this organization used regular mail to get my attention.  Have a listen and see what thoughts this generates.

Do you actually know the credentials of your Business Architecture or Enterprise Architecture prior to you parting with your hard-earned money, or your company’s money?  Not just the organization they work for, but who will be providing you with the training and knowledge you need to be successful?  This broadcast outlines just a few simple questions that you should be able to get answers to, in less than ten minutes of the instructors time, prior to your investment.  Don’t regret your choice when it is too late!

In the field of Business Architecture and Enterprise Architecture, some are trying to popularize the concept of just enough architecture or minimal viable architecture and resulting products.  We suggest that underlying this trend is too much complexity in what is being represented – not level of detail, but its representation.  This broadcast will describe simple and complete as what is desired (and human consumable!).

A United States Senator – Senator Wyden – has asked the FTC, and DOJ to investigate Microsoft for its role in a previous cyber-hack and an email breach.  I applaud this direction, but suggest that “picking” on Microsoft and looking at cybersecurity is, at most, only a start, and I may question that this is a good starting point.  Let us do “root cause analysis”, for these incidents and others.  We strongly suggest that it is the software industry that is “stuck” in Maturity Level 1 software practices, and needs to progress to Maturity Level 3.  Have a listen and your comments are welcome.

Large bad data.  Obviously not good and some have recognized this as “model collapse” – the bad data causes more bad data to be generated.  Small bad data – nothing needs to be said here.  Small (vetted, provenance-known) data – perhaps within your enterprise walls – perhaps the way to go, until large, good data that is used for training appears.  When will this happen?  I do not think this is on the horizon.

Outputs – something that is produced.  Outcomes – the result of something.  What is your “end state” that you are producing from your Enterprise Architecture or Business Architecture efforts?  What are your Stakeholders seeing?  Outputs or Outcomes?  If it is Outputs, perhaps listening to this broadcast will explain the reception you are getting.  Words do have meaning, but so do Outcomes!

There is a growing realization that AI large models are being trained on AI generated content.  You may have to read this sentence again!  In some circles, this is being called AI generated spam.  And more of concern, as we enter the “political season” in the United States, the ease of which political disinformation, with AI generated disinformation will overwhelm legitimate sources.  We suggest there is a way to address this and get a real competitive advantage with this technology.

We describe the three maturity levels for organizations that write computer software and develop applications.  Maturity Level 1 – Make to Order, Maturity Level 2 – Provide from Stock, Maturity Level 3 – Assemble to Order.  Maturity Level three is the key to Enterprise Agility.

A vendor releases a software update to address a serious flaw in their software.  The treat was serious enough to cause the software vendor to rush out a patch.  The patch itself had a problem.  The response from the vendor?  Back out the patch and await another patch!  I thought this flaw was serious.  It is still there.  We need to get this madness stopped.